Ties That Bind
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: Written for the 2014 Loki Month. The Chinese have their red string theory, the Greeks the Moirai and they the Norns, but Loki secretly thought Queen Frigga was the best weaver of all. Perhaps that is why they tell little children that mother's know best?


Had such a stress over train strikes, I forgot to post this earlier.

Here's my contribution for Prompt 2 (5th-8th February 2014): Comic appreciation.

"**Ties That Bind**"

**Disclaimer: **Avengers, Thor, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make

no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.

**Summary: ** Written for the 2014 Loki Month. The Chinese have their red string theory, the Greeks the Moirai and they the Norns, but Loki secretly thought Queen Frigga was the best weaver of all. Perhaps that is why they tell little children that mother's know best?

**Warnings:** Canon Violence. Dwarves are kind of shitty. Prophecy giving Frigga. Odin's A+ parenting. Thor is a jerk. Loki feels. Loki Month.

**Rating: ** NC-17.

**A/N**: I wrote this in work and it's been a while since I've read The Trials of Loki (but it was my favourite Loki-centric comic so I'm using it), and a lot of this is from memory. Go easy on me?

_XXX_

**Words****:**1,589

**Chapter 1**

Loki's mother was an avid weaver.

When he was younger, Frigga had woven blankets and cloaks for the winter, and as he grew she began to weave throws for his horse or wonderful robes that he could wear once he was finally considered old enough to join Odin and Thor on their diplomatic adventures. He hadn't realised until he was much, much older, that each of Frigga's weaves told a story. As a child Loki had always thought they were pretty pictures, but pictures only.

There had been one with a wolf on it, and a snake curled about its neck like a scarf and Loki had laughed at the notion because of course the snake was strangling the wolf (regardless of his mother's insistence otherwise). And then he had borne Fenrir, and afterwards Jörmungandr had been sired, and one had been a wolf and the other a giant snake that grew and grew until Odin had no choice but to toss him into the largest body of water he could find: Midgard's oceans. The picture on that particular blanket had not been of two creatures killing one another, but of brothers, as different as could be but kin nonetheless.

Another, one of the first ones she had woven for him, had been _of_ him, but his skin had been blue. Loki could remember laughing, tracing his fingers lightly across the blue thread, careful not to pluck any of it out of place. "I look like a Jötun!" He had crowed, half-smiling at the thought of somehow using the blanket to terrorize Asgard.

Nothing more was thought of it, until it was confiscated (for Loki had managed to use it to cause grief among the servants), until the day Odin sat him down and explained that he _was_ a Jötun, given to them by Laufey as part of their peace negotiations. Loki had sat numbly, unresponsive, until the King was gone and the Queen had taken his place.

"No," she had told him softly, one hand cupping a cold, wet cheek. "Your mother did not give you away. Odin demanded he take you, and though I am sorry for how he told you, I could never be sorry for your presence here. I love you, sweetheart," she whispered as she kissed his cheek.

She went back to her weaving then, feet curled beneath her on her cushion before the loom, and Loki had used to hand her different threads, had helped her tell colourful stories on cloth, but he was too old though still a child, too hurt to do much more then but resent. And resent he did. No matter how many colourful blankets he was given, no matter the wonderful cloaks or beautiful robes, or the saddlebags she wove for Sleipnir, Loki did not forgive nor forget the truth. He could still not tell the truths of her weaving, but he knew that they _meant_ something. The problem was what.

As he grew, he half-forgot about it all, only concerned with his animosity towards Odin and towards Jötunheimr and Asgard both. The cloak with Dwarven runes along the bottom was nice, but not one of his favourites, and Loki didn't bother even asking his mother what it meant (not that she ever told him anyway). He tucked away in a chest, and two years later when the Dwarves came Loki would lose a bet to them.

The ancient Chinese civilizations believed in red string, the string that ties lives together. The Greeks had the Moirai, the sisters three who weaved and cut the threads of life, and similarly, they had the Norns. But of all the weavers, Loki thought his mother was the best of them all. Perhaps, he thought, calm inside of his mind even as he screamed beneath Thor's hands, that is why they tell little children that 'mothers know best'?

It was thread that went in to each of Frigga's prophecies. She could not speak of them, without suffering the consequence, and so she chose to create them, hints and suggestions that others could piece together, but it was the bringer of Ragnarök whose future she saw most often and whose future she sought to spare from harm.

It is a shame that Loki never learnt to listen.

It was thread, also, that the Dwarves pushed through his lips, pulling taunt again and again after every new wound until Loki could no longer scream. He couldn't talk with his mouth sewn shut, nor eat, and he went hungry for a long time, left to stew in his anger as even Thor was (for once) smart enough to realise that he wasn't welcome. Only Frigga came to visit her son, and he had stared at her balefully, his skin blue in silent protest and his mouth bloody, his face gaunt and ribs poking out between bared skin, every day for two years until she could no longer bear to look upon him. She, too, left him. It was only Sigyn who stayed then, the hand maiden of a visitor from Vanaheimr, who felt pity for the pitiful creature hidden away in the royal wing of the palace, wandering alone at night like a wraith, silent and unseen otherwise.

When his mouth was free, Loki was gifted with another cloak from Frigga. This one was beautiful too, white with fur lining and a fur collar, and across its back was engraved wedding runes and a warning. But Loki paid no heed to the warning (and if he had he would have known that it was not _his own_ wedding he would be attending). He went in search of Sigyn, determined to be her husband, and found her dressed in a white gown with a veil hiding her face from his view. Invisible and silent, thankful for his magic, Loki peered into the alcove and found no one else around. He took her flowers, and needing them for the ceremony, Sigyn went in search of more, crying hysterically all the while. But it gave Loki time to slip between the guests that congregated outside and slip a knife between the ribs of the groom.

Later, standing in his place, Loki was wed to Sigyn. Despite her hate for him, she had vowed to be faithful and true, and it was her who kneeled by his side as Fenris was banished from Asgard. They begged together, on bended knee, before the King on his throne, and Odin paid them no heed. Loki's cloak was covered in chains, the silver thread shining each time he shifted, and he imagined he could hear them clanking together like real chains, but no, it was real chains, behind him, dragged along by a Dwarf (of all creatures). The chains went to the guards, with one-handed Tyr at the front, and together they dragged Fenris away as Loki begged for his son's freedom. Chains were woven around the wolf, like threads, when Loki found him, tying him up and holding him down, like another of mother's weavings. A picture: though one not as pretty.

Fenris did not speak, for the sword through his jaws stopped him, and he no longer struggled, and Loki could not break him free. The chains were too tight, too strong; for all that they looked like the thread woven into Loki's old cloak. Loki left him there, for he could not bear to put his son out of his misery. It was Sigyn, chained to his side by their marriage vows, who kept him company in his grief.

And it was Sigyn again, though she despised him for the death of _their_ son, who held the bowl above his head as the serpent dripped venom onto his face. Around his arms and legs and torso was woven the entrails of his youngest son, like the chains around Fenris, or the vows that forced Sigyn to remain at his side, or the thread that had sealed Loki's lips, they made him writhe with disgust and hate and anger. They felt like despair against his skin, a long remembered agony that screamed inside of his mind for silence and peace; they were his ruin, and Odin's too, for Loki could not (would not) forgive this last light. It was one son too many, one punishment too far, and after he had escaped the serpent and the guts that tied him in place, Frigga gifted him with one last blanket.

Woven onto its back was Odin's face, his hair, his beard, but no neck. Just his head. A smirk curved up his lips as he accepted the gift with a bow of his own head, giving his mother what he was sure was a soft, unknowing smile, like all of the other smiles he had gifted her for all of the other clues she had woven him that he hadn't understood. But this one he did, this one he knew. For it was Odin's head that Loki sought now, and it was Odin's head that Loki would hold in one fist as the blood dripped from the severed throat and all of Asgard bowed at his feet.

Once he was older, much older, Loki would sit upon Asgard's throne, Gungnir in one hand and several strands of red thread woven together into a ribbon around the other wrist to remind himself that fate could not be escaped, could not be avoided, despite his mother's attempts. For Loki would not listen and Loki would not learn.

But mothers really did know best.

**The End**

That one was fun. I rather liked this one, despite all of my worrying over it. Now, to worry about the relationship prompt: to frostiron, or not to frostiron, is there even a question?


End file.
